Ban Discord And Implement Order System

I’d like to suggest limiting or banning the promotion of external Discord servers for trading and instead encouraging all trades to be initiated and agreed upon directly on Sythe.org.
When deals move to Discord, accountability drops significantly: messages can be deleted or selectively shown, staff often lack full context in disputes, and newer users are pushed off-site before learning Sythe’s rules and protections. Keeping negotiations on the forum preserves permanent, timestamped records, strengthens the value of vouches and reputation, and makes dispute resolution clearer and fairer for everyone involved. Discord can still be useful for social interaction or post-deal communication, but Sythe should remain the authoritative source for trade terms.

Alongside this, Sythe could benefit from an on-forum order system where buyers place orders directly on sellers’ threads and sellers formally accept them. Orders would clearly outline the service or item, price, and expectations, and progress could be tracked through completion or dispute. This would create a transparent, standardized trading flow that reduces misunderstandings, discourages scams, and gives staff a clear record of what was agreed upon. Centralizing both trade discussions and order tracking on Sythe would strengthen the marketplace, improve user safety, and reinforce the forum as more than just a referral point to Discord.

 

No Support.

1) Similar suggestion/idea for systemic reform highlighted here: new ideas for the forum


2) 12 years ago or so we piloted a very similar idea to your suggestion on the now defunct powerbot market. We had live chat widgets (zopim at the time) embedded in seller topics. The idea was to allow sellers to initiate conversations and engage with page visitors and potentially increase sales conversion rates.

It seemed like a great idea at first, but it caused more problems than it solved. There were countless ways to cause bugs and potentially imposter scam new users. After a lot of trial and error the site was rolled back to it's original setup.


3) Your idea of implementing a tracking system is good, but it would take so much development and testing that sythe may as well just take it a step further and become another player auctions or eldorado.


Lastly;

I understand your point of view, but changing what Sythe is would, as you say, undermine what makes it unique.

Many users do consider it outdated, and that’s fair, but I doubt Richard would ever seriously consider a fundamental change. The last time a major redesign was proposed, there was a huge backlash. That was roughly 7/8 years ago, so reactions might be different today. Turning Sythe into another competitor to Eldorado, PlayerAuctions, or G2G is theoretically possible, and it would certainly have more authority than building a competitor from scratch. However, while gambling sites are spending thousands per month on ad banners, I don’t see any truly revolutionary shift happening. It's already a stable business as it is.

The communal aspect of the site has also declined significantly. Adding more features doesn’t necessarily translate into more engagement. Times have changed, and so has the way people use the internet. People don’t visit forums, niche sites, or blogs nearly as much as they used to. These days, the closest equivalents are apps like Discord and Telegram, where the infrastructure is far more advanced than what we “boomers” had in the past (e.g. MSN and Skype).

I do business across multiple platforms and games, not just RuneScape. Some customers from other gaming communities have commented that they don’t trust Sythe and see it as less secure, mainly because you’re effectively trusting random individuals and sending money directly rather than through structured payment processors. I won’t list all the reasons, but the feedback was insightful and highlights how expectations and trust models differ across gaming communities.

Edit: forgot to add;

Although many sections on sythe are inactive, there is still a community. Sythe has been around for a long time and has survived. Many other sites did not survive. Sythe is unique and still a stable business as it currently stands. I find sythe a unique breath of fresh air compared to other platforms I am on. Most other platforms it's just strictly business and there is no community aspect.

 

[President]

I believe that this has been suggested a number of times already, without much succes

If anything, I'd suggest to add this proposal to the "do not suggest list"

 

No support. Don't suggest in the future. I'm sorry your Discord server didn't pan out the way you thought.

 

No support as liam said it's not easy to be done it will need much Dev efforts

 

Not worth the effort, and has been suggested before. Sythe is just a Giant-Middleman now, Unfortunately. I do understand where your coming from though as I do miss the days of scrolling through articles looking at all the different threads for different accounts, and this site actually having some individuality. Now It seems any market activity is locked behind somebody's Discord which requires additional effort to join/along with more TOS.

We are effectively a pit-stop instead of an Actual Market now and any rhetoric trying to revert back to that seems to get shot down. I'm a firm believer we have to get back to some sort of system to promote people to actually join the site though. Returning seeing this place just become one big discord-link was just utterly-disappointing.

 

No support from me too
above already sums it up nicely
prone to a lot of dev time, which i don't see likely to happen any time soon.
Also; the negative of having to accept more ToS i personally see as a positive thing.
ToS are there to protect sellers as they are there to protect the buyers too.
Now considering we're all here and like a good bit of nostalgia, the world evolves over time.
before majority of stuff was being redirected to Skype (RIP), i recall the good ol dicing clan days and hanging out on skype / Teamspeak with some of the people here.

long story short, no need to fix what's not broken.

 

I don't know how many times user are going to suggest Sythe turn toward a player auctions like website. Sythe is fine as a forums and users should be able to do business in their own discords. Been working fine for years.

 

I don't know how many times user are going to suggest Sythe turn toward a player auctions like website. Sythe is fine as a forums and users should be able to do business in their own discords. Been working fine for years.

You know the saying "If it ain't broke, don't fix it" well.. What if it is broke?

 

You know the saying "If it ain't broke, don't fix it" well.. What if it is broke?

I think you are confusing broken with inactive. Just cause the site is a bit inactive, doesn't mean it needs to have plastic surgery to attract people back. Just needs to get back out and mingle not change its appearance.